THE INDIVIDUAL ANIMAL IN POETRY145is said to be aware even of the death of a sparrow.^36 The life of the indi-
vidual sparrow and its meaning in the world and as an emblem for the
poet’s father are emblematized ironically at the end of the poem by
a wisp of feathers
flattened to the pavement.......................
left to say
and it says it
without offense
beautifully;
This was I,
a sparrow.
I did my best;
farewell.
Like the rest of the poem, the ending mingles the absurd (we are invited
to imagine talking roadkill) and the profound. A wisp of feathers on the
pavement is almost nothing, insignificant except as a token of a life now
over, given meaning only by the poet who saw it and recalls it. And yet
it is also made into a symbol for both the unknown life of the bird and,
perhaps, of the poet’s father.
Pets are the animals we are most likely to see as individuals, and
about whom countless poems have been written. It is in the nature of
being a pet that it is singled out, brought into the home from a herd or a
shelter, and given a name. That poets (and readers) have many encounters
with pets is unsurprising. To encounter or meditate upon the individual-
ity of a pet requires no special act of perception or luck or travel. Domes-
tication has made animals familiar. They are already ours in imagination,
and also biologically in the sense that we have directed evolution for all
domestic animals, have made them more amenable to our purposes
and desires. Beyond simply naming them, we are also pleased to recog-
nize personalities in our pets. The challenge for poets is to make
common experience meaningful and original. Poems about pets are
important because, as I suggested early in this chapter, our experiences